/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/CINEMA-ZIMBABWE: New Film To Be Seen By More Than 50m In Africa

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Andrew Whaley

HARARE, Nov 30 1999 (IPS) - A Zimbabwean feature film, Yellow Card, is charting new territory with its distribution strategy for Africa.

The 90 minute feature film, about the sex-and-love exploits of a teenage boy from the township, is likely to be seen by at least 50 million people all over Africa, in the first two years after its release in April 2000.

This is not just a fantasy of the film’s producers, Media For Development (MFD). For the last 12 years, films from the MFD stable, like Consequences, Neria, More Time and Everyone’s Child, have laid the foundations of a distribution network across Africa through local groups, entrepreneurs, churches and urban and rural organisations.

MFD has been spared the commercial worries of penetrating untried African markets. With its trust status and upfront grant money to make movies with a social message, the film makers have been able to shape an alternative box office independent of meagre movie houses or cash-strapped broadcasters.

Now, as Yellow Card goes into the advanced stages of post- production, the producers are tapping deeper into this vast viewer catchment.

MFD’s producer-director of Yellow Card, John Riber, explains the thinking behind this distribution success. “We have learned the hard way. For a lot of producers, traditionally the thinking was: ‘If we make a good film, it is going to sell.’ That is not true. Make more money available for distribution. On Yellow Card, the breakthrough is (that) we are spending half on a distribution effort,” he says.

This is money already in the budget. The film was shot in English, but vernacular dubs in Shona and Ndebele for Zimbabwe, Portuguese, French and Swahili follow next year.

Theatrical release will be followed by a barrage of videos as well as supporting teaching videos, in a dozen more languages, which will become teaching tools about the themes of Yellow Card – the life-choices teenagers face with sex, love, friendship, Aids, pregnancy and responsibility.

Target countries are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The West African market, prone to video piracy, is notoriously difficult to gauge but, Riber says, a test French version of MFD’s last film, Everyone’s Child, is being “thrown to the wind” in West Africa to see what takes root.

In addition, Riber travels to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Nairobi, Kenya, and Kampala, Uganda early December with Zimbabwean assistant director and trainee producer, Leo Phiri, to see the market. They will be armed with rough cut copies of Yellow Card to test selected audience responses. Questions will concentrate as much on entertainment value as to whether viewers get the ‘message’ loud and clear. They will also hype the film by distributing flyers and a broadcast-quality “Making of…” video called Yellow Fever.

Yellow Fever has been specially targeted at young people. Made by Zimbabwean youngsters and presented by vibrant Zimbabwean DJ, Tich Mataz, with interviews of the teenage stars of the movie, it is a strong marketing weapon to whip up interest six months prior to the film’s release.

Yellow Card is not reliant on box office sales. Theatres are few and far between in Africa. South Africa boasts the most – 1000 screens. Zimbabwe has 35, Kenya 28. The figures tail off to zero for other African countries.

“To measure the popularity of a film by the number of bums in theatre seats is impossible, ” Riber says. “But we know, from our experience with Everyone’s Child, that for every video we sell, we reach a thousand people – on average. Now we can say with confidence that a film like Everyone’s Child reached 50 million people in its first two years. For 1 million US Dollars, that is a pretty good investment.”

Because of MFD’s success in reaching audiences, Riber strongly believes Yellow Card has been able to break away from the dry and boring confines of “content experts and technocrats who control the message of the film.”

Investors in Yellow Card “recognise we are focused and concerned about the issues, so they give us a lot more freedom, ownership and responsibility. They trust us.” Donors are not looking for profit. They want to know the message is getting out to more people. Because of this trust, MFD has been able to capitalise on Yellow Card’s entertainment value to make sure this happens.

When MFD first proposed making a light and youthful film about a 17-year-old boy with uncontrollable hormones and a passion for football, the idea was to produce a neat 500 000-US-Dollar movie, much like earlier films from their stable.

But MFD’s excellent record, combined with the exciting prospects of reaching further and deeper into Africa, so excited granting agencies that the film budget bounced up to 1.5 million US Dollars.

“The vision became larger,” says Riber. The film makers were able to invest in greater screen value. A state of the art Avid editing suite became part of the package. This facility will allow future MFD films to be made more cheaply and easily. Already, other Zimbabwean film makers have edited films on the equipment.

More money in the kitty meant that Yellow Card could be shot on Panavision by a Hollywood Director of Photography. Sandi Sissal, best known for her cinematography on Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay was hired for the shoot, at a fraction of her normal fee.

Riber says that the “crisp sound and images in the film are a great leap forward – better than anything ever seen in Zimbabwe and competing very strongly with anything made in South Africa.” He hopes the added big screen value will stir attention at film festivals and convince producers and distributors of Zimbabwe’s commercial potential.

In Africa, distribution mechanisms are so weak “you can’t even give it away,” says Riber. “There is no appreciation at all of African product. Broadcasters won’t even pay to land the masters, even if you give it for free.”

Could Yellow Card be one movie that proves the viability of African-made films? Could MFD’s expanding distribution network make the rewards outweigh the commercial risks? Riber is certainly counting on it: “Yellow Card will set a trend, I hope.”